Archive for June 2016 (14 posts)

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We continue our spotlight of letters from the Letters About Literature initiative, a national reading and writing program that asks young people in grades 4 through 12 to write to an author (living or deceased) about how his or her book affected their lives. Winners for 2016 were announced earlier this month.

There was a tie for the national honor award for Level 1. Following is one of the winning letters written by Charlie Boucher of Rhode Island to Kathryn Erskine, author of “Mockingbird.”

Dear Mrs. Erskine,

A few years ago, I was walking down a bustling Boston street when I noticed a man. His clothes were torn, too small, and he clutched a jar labeled “Please donate.” He muttered gibberish to himself, then shouted at a few young ladies. He seemed confused, yet aggravated simultaneously. I was afraid he might try to hurt someone. My father hurried me along, past the man and down the street. I quickly realized I was walking away from something bigger than a man; I was walking away from what my younger, ignorant self considered to be a disease, a sickness. When we were out of earshot, I asked my dad what was wrong with that man. He brushed the question off, simply saying that I should “avoid people like that.” About a month later, I picked up “Mockingbird.”

I fell in love with that book. No other book has ever made me cry. But I did more than cry. I thought, I visualized, I feared. When I finished your book, I couldn’t stop thinking about that man I had seen. Did he have Aspergers? Rather than avoiding him, should my father and I have helped him? What about the countless other Caitlins in the world? I felt sympathy for them, but I felt something else. Later I realized that was guilt.

I was the girls at Caitlin’s school, bringing her down. Just for avoiding people like that, I had become the bully. I was a hypocrite, ridiculing those who did not help others but not actually helping. The very core of my being, kindness, was in question. But I reread your book, and I felt more a sense of understanding. You weren’t trying to frown upon those who bullied, but rather encourage people to be more open, to promote empathy. I did.

Not even a week after my discovery, I was walking into church when I saw a man who looked and seemed similar than the man I had previously met in Boston. I smiled at him, remembering Caitlin, and gave him a high five. It looked like I had made his day. That man continues to go to my church, and I still greet him the same way I did on that first day. I realized he was kind and helpful. He along with that experience, changed me, and kindness has fully emerged again. I am the person I want to be.

But your book did more than that. It brought to me a confusing topic in an enlightening way: Death. Having someone you love or care about violently ripped away from you. Not knowing where to go, or who to turn to, or anything. That struck me, and it stuck. Life is short, and any day it could end. Just like that. Poof. So make the most of it, and assist the unassisted. Help the helpless. Give a voice to the silent.

All these emotions and thoughts, so strong that I couldn’t keep them in, came pouring out when I read your inspirational novel. And thanks to “Mockingbird” I know now, more than I ever have, about bullying, loss, Aspergers. I have emerged from a cloud of swirling sentiments, a better person, better friend. Your book helps me every day to be the person I want to be, and for that I thank you.

Charlie Boucher

You can read all the winning letters here, including the winning letters from previous years.

(The following is a story written by Mark Hartsell for the Gazette, the Library of Congress staff newsletter.) As a hospital chaplain during the Civil War, William Oland Bourne collected the names of the wounded soldiers he tended and, in doing so, noticed a terrible trend: Many soldiers used their left hands to sign his […]

The Country Music Association and Library of Congress Music Division joined forces again to bring the CMA Songwriters Series to the Library’s historic Coolidge Auditorium. This year’s concert featured Kristian Bush of the hit country duo Sugarland, along with Jim Collins and Charlie Worsham. Launched in 2005 at Joe’s Pub in New York City, the CMA Songwriters Series gives […]

Letters About Literature, a Library of Congress national reading- and writing-promotion program that asks young people in grades 4 through 12 to write to an author (living or deceased) about how his or her book affected their lives, announced its 2016 winners earlier this month. Nearly 50,000 young readers from across the country participated in […]

“America Reads,” which opened yesterday in the Southwest Gallery of the Jefferson Building, is possibly the first sequel exhibition at the Library of Congress. It follows the institution’s popular 2012 exhibition “Books That Shaped America,” which displayed 88 books by American authors “that had a profound effect on American life.” For this exhibition, the books were chosen […]

We continue our Throwback Thursday #TBT celebration of Chronicling America, our free, online searchable database of historical U.S. newspapers, with interesting stories from the archives as selected by reference librarians in our Serials & Government Publications Division. Today we return to our historical newspaper archives to veer off from the normal journalistic endeavors and examine […]

(The following is a story from the May/June 2016 issue of the Library of Congress Magazine, LCM. You can read the issue in its entirety here.) Inspired by the nation’s long history of photographic survey projects, photographer Robert Dawson decided to focus his camera on America’s public libraries at the turn of the 21st century. “Since […]

(The following is a guest blog post written by Elizabeth Gettins, Library of Congress digital library specialist.) When you think of the “Jungle Book,” what comes to mind first? For some, it is the classic 1967 Walt Disney movie; for others, the new 2016 Disney release. However, for many bibliophiles, there is no substitute for […]

Nominated for a record-setting 16 Tony Awards, “Hamilton” the musical swept the ceremony winning 11, including Best Musical, Best Book, Best Original Score and a handful of best actor/actresses. The show is based on the Ron Chernow biography on founding father Alexander Hamilton, which Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote the musical, had picked up on a whim […]

Dr. Jill Biden joined young-adult author Michael Grant and two female combat soldiers in conversation, comparing and contrasting real and imagined events in World War II with 21st-century combat and military life, in the Library of Congress’ annual Jonah Solkoff Eskin Memorial program on Monday. Monday was also the 72nd anniversary of WWII’s D-Day landing […]

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